Technological Field
The described technology relates to a method for predicting a short-term flight path of an aircraft, the flight path of the aircraft being associated at each time moment with a vector including at least one component from among a position of the aircraft, attitudes of the aircraft and order 1 and 2 time derivatives of the position and attitudes, the short-term flight path being the flight path of the aircraft for a time period of up to 30 seconds from a computation date of the flight path, the method including: an acquisition step for acquiring a control signal representative of a displacement of a primary control member of the aircraft; a prediction step for predicting, on a subsequent prediction date, at least one component of the short-term flight path of the aircraft, the prediction step being carried out on the computation date.
Description of the Related Technology
“Flight path of the aircraft” generally refers to a vector including at least one component from among the position of the aircraft, attitudes of the aircraft and order 1 and 2 time derivatives of the position and attitudes. These order 1 and 2 derivatives then correspond to the traveling speeds, angular speeds, accelerations and angular accelerations.
“Short-term flight path prediction” generally refers to the prediction, on a computation date T, of all or part of the components of the vector associated with the flight path of the aircraft on a prediction date T′ after the computation date T, the prediction date T′ being comprised in a time period of up to 30 seconds from the computation date T of the flight path.
Traditionally, the pilot of an aircraft controls the device primarily by using one or more primary control members, generally a yoke or a side-stick and/or one or more throttles. Via the actuation of the or each primary control member, the pilot commands an attitude change of the aircraft or causes an increase in the thrust of one or more reactors of the apparatus, which results in modifying the flight path of the aircraft.
Generally, the pilot uses his own sensations, for example the acceleration that he feels when actuating the primary control members or the evolution of his visual references, as well as his flight experience, to anticipate the future flight path and correct that flight path until the aircraft is brought to the desired flight path.
However, the pilot generally does not have any explicit indication regarding the short-term consequence of an action on the primary control members on the flight path of the aircraft.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,086,362 B2 describes a method for predicting the flight path of an aircraft from instructions from a pilot of the aircraft, and displaying the predicted flight path.
During the implementation of this method, the value of the instructions for computing the flight path is considered to be constant and equal to the value of the instruction on a given computation date.
When the maneuver is not done with a constant instruction, for example constant roll, the predicted flight path sometimes differs significantly from the actual future flight path.